Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs)
SMMs are paramagnetic molecules that possess easy-axis anisotropy and a barrier to their magnetization reversal. Their quantum nature, manifested by quantum tunneling of the magnetization and quantum phase interference, has led to much excitement regarding their applications in future generations of information storage and quantum computing.
To obtain SMMs with high energy barrier and blocking temperature, lanthanide centers with large magnetic anisotropy and the 4d/5d metal ions with strong anisotropic magnetic exchange coupling were used in our group.
For the SMMs constructed from lanthanide centers, we used the 3d-4f compartmental compounds as the starting materials and employed the azide ligand to bridge the lanthanide centers. In this way, we were able to obtain a whole series of end-on azide bridged 3d-4f compounds. Most of these compounds containing the Tb3+ and Dy3+ centers were indeed SMMs. Detailed magnetic measurements on one single crystal of some of these systems revealed the Ising anisotropy of the system and the magneto-structural relationship of the magnetic anisotropy.
Using the [MoIII(CN)7]4- building blocks, we intended to use the anisotropic magnetic coupling to construct better SMMs. We obtained the first molecule cluster made of [MoIII(CN)7]4- (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.2010, 49, 5081-5084. cover). This compound has the most paramagnetic metal centers and the highest ground spin state (S = 31) for the cyano-bridged compounds. Furthermore, we obtained a series of trinuclear Mn2Mo compounds, one of which is really the first SMM based on the[MoIII(CN)7]4- unit. It has the highest energy barrier for all the cyano-bridged SMMs (J. Am. Chem. Soc.2013, 135, 13302).

Bistable Materials
Molecular bistability has invoked intense interest in the molecular materials community because of its great potential for application in sensors, displays, and switching devices. We are interested in two main systems of magnetic bistability. The first one is the well-known spin-crossover compounds. We hope to develop anionic spin-crossover compounds and multifunctional spin crossover compounds, such as the cation dependent and porous spin crossover compounds.
The other system is the phase transition induced magnetic bistability. In this area, we were able to prepare a whole series of azido-bridged perovskite-type compounds where the magnetic bistability can be obtained near room temperatures and the critical temperatures can be tuned using different cations(J. Am. Chem. Soc.2013,135, 16006). Sequential phase transitions were observed in these metal-organic framework perovskite structures, just as observed in the pure inorganic ABO3 perovskite compounds. These systems might be of great importance for the further development of functional materials.